NICHER - AN APPROACH TO IDENTIFYING DEFENSIBLE PRODUCT POSITIONS

The concept of defensible product positioning is developed from the sp ecial case of market niching. A defensible position is one which remai ns viable even after subsequent competitive entry. The flavor of the n iching problem is retained by using positioning as the key to defensib ility. A defensible positioning strategy may involve targeting multipl e segments, introducing multiple products or both. In some markets, de fensible positions may not even exist. Two procedures, NICHER-SCM and NICHER-PCM, were developed to identify defensible positions under sing le and probabilistic choice models. These procedures represent an adva nce over existing methods which do not consider the effect of future e ntrants on the new product.